Visitors restricted at Kentville hospital

KENTVILLE — Visitor restrictions remain in place at Valley Regional Hospital in Kentville in an attempt to contain a gastrointestinal illness among patients and staff.

“The visitor restrictions are still on right now,” Annapolis Valley Health spokeswoman Lesley Mulcahy said in an interview Monday. “Basically, we wait at least 48 hours since the latest incident before lifting the restrictions.’’

She said there were a few additional cases over the weekend of the illness, which includes vomiting and diarrhea.

The restrictions apply to all medical units at the region’s largest hospital. Mulcahy said exceptions will be made to close family members of critically ill patients.

“If folks aren’t feeling well themselves, we recommend that they not come into the hospital to visit. That way, we can limit the spread of any illness.

“In any hospital, you have people who are more susceptible to picking up something. And we strongly encourage regular and thorough hand washing at any time but especially this time of the year, when there are a lot of illnesses going around.’’

All outpatient hospital services are available.

“Everything else is still open for business,” Mulcahy said. “It’s just the units where we have patients staying that are subject to restrictions.”

The illness is believed to be gastrointestinal but samples have been sent to a lab to determine if there are any other actions hospital staff can take to limit its spread.

Some of the earlier cases of the illness that occurred last week have already cleared up.

“It’s hard to say how long the restrictions will be in place,” Mulcahy said. “We’ll definitely leave them until we make sure we’re in the clear, to prevent anyone with the illness from coming into the hospital and any patients from picking it up.”

She said the illness is not associated in any way with E. coli cases found in some areas of the province recently. There have been 10 confirmed cases of E. coli but none reported in the Annapolis Valley.

Five cases have been reported in the Capital regional health district, two in the area covered by the Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority and one each in the Pictou, Cumberland and Colchester-East Hants health authorities.